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Kinda funny to read scientists say testorone doesn't help in sports like these.

I reviewed an all comers track meet a few months ago. The overall woman 100m winner, in her 20s, would have barely beat the 70 year old guy--whose testosterone is probably close to double the woman.

All the younger men (e.g., 60s) with fewer miles and more testosterone left the woman in their dust



> Kinda funny to read scientists say testorone doesn't help in sports like these.

Which scientists say that???

The article features a scientist talking about a genetic mutation on the Y chromosome which affects the production of testosterone, and another scientist talking about another genetic mutation that prevents testosterone from being processed in the body. In both cases the individuals with these mutations have XY chromosome, yet female phenotypes. Individuals with the second mutation would have high testosterone without the performance enhancement. Those mutations are rare and would certainly not be picked up by comparing the racing time of men vs women.

No scientist in the article or any other that I've read makes the bold claim thar testosterone doesn't enhance performance in general.

Edit: in fact based on the estimate from the article of 1 in 300 people being affected by a DSD, you might expect that if a DSD enhances performance of women to the level of men (through increased testosterone for example) you might expect some women from your dataset to reach the middle of the pack of men performance. This is a hypothesis you can even test statistically, though that would be limited by the little we know of the many types of DSD.


Exogenous testosterone doesn't help in events like track and field. Maybe sprinting but there are better tools for the job.

But your comment does touch up on something else which is the fact that men and women very much have biological differences that are complimentary to our survival as a species and trying to ignore or say they don't exist smacks the face of reality hard.

But the linked article indeed touches upon a unique edge case and it's something that these games will need to address, the 3rd option. Unfortunately by genetics these "intersex" people are not men OR women, they are aberrations and unique which I would say should preclude them from competing entirely because they aren't technically men or women.


If their sex linked genetics gives them an advantage over women but not men, why should they be restricted from competing against men? That seems unnecessary and cruel.


Because they're neither men nor women. I bet there are physically disabled people who want to compete in no handicap competitions not deemed by the ableist term "special" yet they are forced into that and worse have to accept the obvious that it isn't possible.

Sadly, we live in a cruel and unfair world and coming to acceptance of that is called growing up.




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